Harvesting Peas

After chores, around lunchtime, SM and I spent about an hour shelling some of the English Peas.  We talked about growing up in Ohio with gardens.  Fond memories of sitting around kitchen tables shelling peas. 

"These seem smaller to me but then again I was a kid, so maybe everything seemed bigger then."  SM recalls.

"They seem smaller to me too.  Probably the variety (Wando and Green Arrow).  I remember spending summers with my Grandma and Grandpa in upstate New York." I said.  "I would pull the peas and dig new potatoes from out of their garden and Grandma would make a soup with peas, chunks of potatoes, milk, butter and salt and pepper.  I remember asking for seconds it was so good.  I couldn't get enough of that simple soup."

"What are you going to do with these?"  SM asks.

"I think I'll freeze this batch.  It's going to be cool enough this week that we can take our time harvesting the rest.  About how far into the bed are we?"  I ask.

"About half."  SM replies.

I told him to go ahead and pull the plants up and we would strip them as we went along.  There are no new blooms anywhere on the plants...some even look like they're yellowing/drying up.  I don't want to wait too long and have tough, dried out peas.  My window is very short for any kind of pea. 

I blanched them for 90 seconds and then cooled them off in ice water.
  

"Look what an 1 1/2 hours of shelling peas gives you."  I tossed the 2 quart bags at SM.

"I can buy a bag of frozen peas at the store for about a $1."  SM says.

"But they don't taste like this!"  I respond.

"Summer fresh in the middle of winter!"